Thursday, April 7, 2016

Staunton, April 7 – Many Russian
commentators have reacted with anger to Moscow’s agreement to allow China to
open more businesses in the Russian Far East, a development they say will be
accompanied by an influx of Chinese workers and Chinese influence over that
sparsely populated Russian region (grani.ru/Politics/Russia/m.250310.html).

But despite these concerns – and they
are likely to grow first in the Russian Far East itself and then among Russian environmentalists
more generally – Moscow is going ahead with a program that Moscow analyst
Leonid Radzikhovsky says is “the hybrid surrender of the Far East to the
Chinese” (ng.ru/blogs/leorad/o-gibridnoy-sdache-dalnego-vostoka-kitaytsam.php).

He suggests that the brief and dry
reports that Moscow has agreed to allow some Chinese plants to relocate in the
Russian Far East conceal more than they reveal. In fact, this is no small
thing. Instead, Radzikhovsky argues, China will quickly come to dominate the
economy and more of the Far East.

On the one hand, the economy of that
Russian region is so small that any introduction of outside players will have a
disproportionate set of consequences.And on the other, “where there are enterprises, there will be
infrastructure, and where there is a labor force … Chinese workers in large
numbers will become simply INEVITABLE.”

The result, he suggests, will follow
the formula: “economics plus demography equals a province of the Chinese
Peoples Republic, with ethnic Russian enclaves.” The flag, shield and hymn will
remain Russian, but these will be the symbols of “rollback” rather than of the
defense of national territory and national interest.

Chinese business has an additional
advantage in this situation, the Moscow commentator says.Its Russian competitors are opposed by the
Russian state, but the Russian state in deference to the Chinese state gives
Chinese businesses advantages that Russian businesses can only dream of.
Consequently, this “hybrid” surrender will be faster than many imagine.

“And so,” Radzikhovsky says, “Chinese
DOMINANCE in the economy of the Far East is GUARANTEED” by the economic and
demographic advantages of China in the region and “by the POLICY of the Russian
state” toward China and its economic and political interests. Clearly, he says,
the Kremlin “’needs China. It doesn’t need the [Russian] Far East.”

Russians can thus day “adieu” to
that region which is being surrendered in a “hybrid” fashion to China with “rollback
and taxes” leading directly to “the Chinese colonization of the Far East,” a
colonization that works as do Moscow’s other hybrid operations for the Kremlin
but not for the Russian people.